[daffy_elmo]

Right now I'm trying to download a file size of 2.4GB (notice the bold underlined letters?).

AND another file size of 1.1GB (again you might have noticed the bold underlined letters).

So I realize that on a 56kb/sec modem it will take a long time!!!
That's why i downloaded some download managers to speed things up a bit.
I was a little surprised when all these programmes did was double the download speed from 3kb/sec to 7kb/sec (that's at its best).

I thought this was probably normal until i realised that most website approximations for download time on a 56kb/sec modem were about twice as fast as i was getting.

I also realized that the updated version of my download manager could be forced to download up to 25kb/sec (which is still below the 56kb/sec that my modem really is), but only for a while, and it meant i would have to sit by my computer all day & night .

I'm not sure if this is actually a problem or not...... but shouldn't a 56kb/sec modem download at say about..... 56kb/sec!?!

Maybe i will have to overclock my modem (if that's possible) but i heard that overclocking shortens hardware life.

Maybe i should just wait until we get broadband but i may be waiting so long that i should have downloaded it at even 3kb/sec.

What do you think??????

[Advertisements]

56k is the speed of the connection between your computer and your internet provider. It has nothing to do with maximum download speeds, which on a dial-up connection will hover between 3k and 7k a second. To download at 56k a second will require broadband.

It's not possible to overclock modems as they are dependent on the quality of the phone line and conditions of the telephone network at the time, plus it won't connect any faster anyway.

[Neil Jones]

56k is the speed of the connection between your computer and your internet provider. It has nothing to do with maximum download speeds, which on a dial-up connection will hover between 3k and 7k a second. To download at 56k a second will require broadband.

It's not possible to overclock modems as they are dependent on the quality of the phone line and conditions of the telephone network at the time, plus it won't connect any faster anyway.

[Kemasa]

Also realize that it is 56k BAUD, which is bits per second, not bytes. There is overhead too, which means you need to divide by 10 to get the bytes per second, so it would be 5.6k bytes/sec. There is also data compression which can increase the speed.

Either get a highspeed connection or get a friend to download it for you. Forget it with a modem. Even in the Mb range a modem just does not cut it (which is what I use since I can't get DSL and I hate the lying cable company).

[daffy_elmo]

Thanks. that's what i thought.

a while ago i actualy worked out what the download speed would be if it was 56kilo BITS per second, but for some reason it still came out as more kilo BYTES per second than what it was downloading as. then i realized that i worked it out wrong. i worked it out again just now & it came up as:

1 BYTE = 8 BITS so...
1 BIT = 0.125 BYTES so.....
0.125 BYTES X 1024 = 128 BYTES And....
128 BYTES X 56 = 7168 BYTES And....
7168 BYTES / 1024 = 7 Kilo BYTES

..... wich is currently what i'm getting. So i geuss i will have to wait 3 days after all.
(I wonder why the website said it will take 60 Hours to download!!)

[Kemasa]

Actually, there is a start bit and a stop bit, which is why you can divide by 10. The compression will get you higher data rates. Also, the bandwidth is divided between the sending and receiving, with the receive typically set higher.

[daffy_elmo]

I noticed that one of my downloaders could download at 24 kilobytes per second (slowy dropping down to 10 kilobyets per second) when the dowload first started, but after about 15 minutes it would slow down to 3 or 4 kilobytes per second.

but it can't have just been that it miss-calculated how fast it was downloading at because it managed to do about 15MB of downloading in just 15 minutes wich is faster than i've ever gone before. so i know my modem can do it i've just got to work out how.....